300 Tons of WMD???

[Working Man]

think about it, 300 tons is of high explosives gives a lot of shxx heads the opportunity to take a lot of lives, in lots of parts of the world. That is 6000 pounds. Since it only takes 1 pound to knock a 747 from the sky, there is enough to be used in any part of the world.

WITH THAT IN MIND,, OK, GW and the boys F'ed up when the material was not secured, but,,, seems to indicate that there were WMD on hand in Iraq AFTERALL,, just not in the form we were looking for. Taking high explosives for granted was a trajic mistake on the coalition forces part.

Failing to admit that this stuff could be used to hurt Americans, innocent Iraquis, etc by the dope from Massachussets. JK is playing the armchair warrior, and US media, like a pro. Unfortunately, he may end up elected...

 

[nakedemperor]

WITH THAT IN MIND,, OK, GW and the boys F'ed up when the material was not secured, but,,, seems to indicate that there were WMD on hand in Iraq AFTERALL,, just not in the form we were looking for. Taking high explosives for granted was a trajic mistake on the coalition forces part.

High explosives are not necessarily what the administration defined as weapons of mass destruction. Very dangerous, but semantically, not WMD.

 

[dmp]

think about it, 300 tons is of high explosives gives a lot of shxx heads the opportunity to take a lot of lives, in lots of parts of the world. That is 6000 pounds. Since it only takes 1 pound to knock a 747 from the sky, there is enough to be used in any part of the world.

WITH THAT IN MIND,, OK, GW and the boys F'ed up when the material was not secured, but,,, seems to indicate that there were WMD on hand in Iraq AFTERALL,, just not in the form we were looking for. Taking high explosives for granted was a trajic mistake on the coalition forces part.

Failing to admit that this stuff could be used to hurt Americans, innocent Iraquis, etc by the dope from Massachussets. JK is playing the armchair warrior, and US media, like a pro. Unfortunately, he may end up elected...

LOL!

psst!! here's a secret...

The UN 'secured and labelled' the munitions; which were gone before the US launched the invasion.

 

[MissileMan]

think about it, 300 tons is of high explosives gives a lot of shxx heads the opportunity to take a lot of lives, in lots of parts of the world. That is 6000 pounds. Since it only takes 1 pound to knock a 747 from the sky, there is enough to be used in any part of the world.

WITH THAT IN MIND,, OK, GW and the boys F'ed up when the material was not secured, but,,, seems to indicate that there were WMD on hand in Iraq AFTERALL,, just not in the form we were looking for. Taking high explosives for granted was a trajic mistake on the coalition forces part.

Failing to admit that this stuff could be used to hurt Americans, innocent Iraquis, etc by the dope from Massachussets. JK is playing the armchair warrior, and US media, like a pro. Unfortunately, he may end up elected...

FYI, 300 tons is 600,000 lbs of explosives. And as -=d=- has stated, it turns out that apparently the U.S. military never had possession of these explosives, so therefore the U.S. military didn't lose them.

 

[Fmr jarhead]

WITH THAT IN MIND,, OK, GW and the boys F'ed up when the material was not secured,

OK...one more time. The explosives were not there when the US troops got there. How could that be the responsibility of GWB? There was an NBC reporter embedded with the troops that rolled in to Al Qaqaa weapons depot on 10 April 2003. Wasn't the day before the US troops took over Baghdad?

 

[dmp]

Al QaQaa? The Ka-ka? The Poop?

Interesting...

 

[Fmr jarhead]

This pretty much sums up the arguement.....

Stratfor Morning Intelligence Brief - Oct. 27, 2004 ......................................................................

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1146 GMT - IRAN -- Iran and the EU3 -- Britain, France, and Germany -- began the second round of talks behind closed doors in Vienna, Austria, on Tehran's nuclear program Oct. 27, IRNA reported. The state-owned Iranian news agency said Tehran is expected to deliver a counter-proposal to the EU3 on resolving the dispute over Iran's alleged attempts to acquire nuclear weapons.

1134 GMT - AFGHANISTAN -- A U.S. military convoy struck a roadside bomb in southeastern Afghanistan on Oct. 27, injuring three U.S. soldiers and one Afghan soldier. A U.S. military statement said the incident involved a Humvee vehicle and took place near Qalat, the capital of Zabul province. Two of the Americans were rushed to the U.S. base at Kandahar for treatment, while the third American and the Afghan soldier were treated on the scene.

1128 GMT - IRAQ -- Nearly 800 British troops, escorted by 40 U.S. Marines, began their redeployment in northern Iraq on Oct. 27. British Lt. Col. James Cowan said 800 Scottish soldiers of the First Battalion, Black Watch, left the southern city of Basra to head for a base north of Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad. The forces will replace U.S. troops, who are expected to take part in a major offensive against Sunni insurgents in areas to the north and west of the capital.

1123 GMT - NORTH KOREA -- North Korea may be preparing for a test launch of a NoDong ballistic missile, South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo reported, citing South Korean officials. U.S. image intelligence has shown increased activity and the movement of mobile launchers at the Jeongju base, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, where the missiles are stored. It is unclear whether the movements are preparations for a launch or simply part of military drills.



Geopolitical Diary: Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004

Global media have been reporting ad nauseam about 380 tons of high-grade explosives that have gone missing from Iraq's Al Qaqaa facility, an arms depot sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Specifically, the charge is that U.S. forces, through negligence, allowed the looting of
215 tons of HMX, 156 tons of RDX and 6 tons of PETN explosives.

Normally, this is the sort of thing that makes a Stratfor analyst's hair stand on end. HMX? Tons of it? Missing? In Iraq? This is where we usually hit the panic button.

That was until, after a little bit of poking around, we discovered that the explosives in question did not disappear just this week, but last year.
Their absence was not confirmed until several weeks after the fall of Baghdad.

We quickly dialed back. After all, if this were such an old story, certainly it would shrivel up and blow away in short order. But it did not die. If anything, as the hours rolled by, it gathered steam until it began crowding out other far more time-sensitive issues.

The key issue for us -- and we are stunned that this information has not made it into the general discussion of this issue -- is that it is quite possible these explosives were either destroyed or removed before the 2003 Iraq war even began.

The IAEA last visually inspected the materials in January 2003, and although the agency states that it checked the buildings in March 2003 to ensure its seals were still on the buildings, it fully admits to not directly inspecting the explosives at that time.

It is also possible that the U.S. military destroyed the explosives. On April 4, 2003 -- a week before the fall of Baghdad -- U.S. forces reported finding a large quantity of white powder -- initially suspected to be WMD -- at an industrial complex in Latifiyah. When it turned out to be "only" high grade explosives, U.S. forces did what they did with every other arms depot they found: They blew it up. By the way, the Al Qaqaa facility is in -- you guessed it -- Latifiyah. Both RDX and PETN are often stored as white powder.

Details regarding the explicit location of the "powder" that U.S. forces found and destroyed are hardly complete, and the powder is not necessarily the same type or types of explosive, but the point remains that it is rather spurious for this all to be pouring out into the public eye -- and holding it -- some 18 months after the materials supposedly went missing.

There are three leading hypotheses on the explosives' fate.

First, the explosives were removed under the nose of U.S. forces. We find this unlikely if for no reason other than 380 tons of anything requires a bit of effort to move, particularly during wartime when anything that resembles a convoy gets an airstrike. Unsurprisingly, the Bush administration is denouncing this hypothesis for just that reason.

Second, the explosives were removed just before or in the early days of the war before U.S. forces could focus on the area just south of Baghdad. They were then stashed somewhere for later use. This scenario is a bit flimsy because it requires powerful explosives to be in the hands of guerrillas who are not using them. This is clearly the preferred spin of the Kerry campaign.

Third, the bulk of the explosives were removed before U.S. forces thoroughly investigated the area after the fall of Baghdad. In such a scenario the explosives would have either been redirected to military use or relocated someplace beyond the reach of U.S. forces, such as Syria. We are not seeing any discussion about this possibility.

Regardless of what specifically happened to the explosives, the timing of the entire media furor is questionable to say the least. We suspect that it will all die down on or about Nov. 3, the day after it does not matter what actually happened.

Copyrights 2004 - Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com

 

[CSM]

380 tons of explosives is not something you can hide in a briefcase and once you have them you can't just stack them in your closet either. If we use the now famous Kerry logic regarding such things, since they are not there now they must not have existed and posed no threat anyway.

 

[ChrisH]

The 380 tons of explosives, as I'm sure we all in the message board are aware, did not disappear just a couple of days ago, but actually days before we actually invaded Iraq. The question I have is; if 380 tons of explosives were able to be taken just days before we invaded Iraq, then doesn't it seem likely that WMD could have also disappeared prior to our invasion?

I heard Rush mention this, but I think the republicans need to play a little on that. It seems logical to me. I actually am more convinced now of the possibility there was WMD in Iraq, but was removed prior to our invasion, than I was prior to this misleading story by CBS and the NY Times.

 

[gaffer]

Its just cbs trying to stir shit up against bush again with a little help from that wonderful world organization the un. Which is trying to influence our election.

 

[drowe]

The 380 tons of explosives, as I'm sure we all in the message board are aware, did not disappear just a couple of days ago, but actually days before we actually invaded Iraq. The question I have is; if 380 tons of explosives were able to be taken just days before we invaded Iraq, then doesn't it seem likely that WMD could have also disappeared prior to our invasion?

Precisely Chris!!!

Saddam knew we were coming, and we spent 3+ weeks jacking around with the UN before kickoff. Now, with the highlighted situation, does anybody else see a WMD relocation/smuggling capability of the Iraqis prior to the invasion? I think that's a question that should be pushed. Also, does anyone think this whole ordeal could actually be a precursor to an October surprise?

 

[KarlMarx]

think about it, 300 tons is of high explosives gives a lot of shxx heads the opportunity to take a lot of lives, in lots of parts of the world. That is 6000 pounds. Since it only takes 1 pound to knock a 747 from the sky, there is enough to be used in any part of the world.

WITH THAT IN MIND,, OK, GW and the boys F'ed up when the material was not secured, but,,, seems to indicate that there were WMD on hand in Iraq AFTERALL,, just not in the form we were looking for. Taking high explosives for granted was a trajic mistake on the coalition forces part.

Failing to admit that this stuff could be used to hurt Americans, innocent Iraquis, etc by the dope from Massachussets. JK is playing the armchair warrior, and US media, like a pro. Unfortunately, he may end up elected...

Forgive me for being picky, but it the obssesive/compulsive in me..... 300 tons is 600,000 pounds. That's about the same weight as say, 20 locomotives. That amount of tonnage can't just be pilfered away, it would take about 40 or 50 tractor trailer loads to haul away

Also, the premise that the WMDs were there when our troops got there and then was subsequently stolen is false. According to several sources, including an eyewitness who was a soldier deployed during the Iraq war, (I heard his account on the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday) the explosives were not there when our troops arrived on the scene back in April 2003.

The only conclusion is that the WMDs were removed before we invaded.

So WMDs were in Iraq... after all.....

So who's the liar now?

Al QaQaa? The Ka-ka? The Poop?

Interesting...

Yes, as in what is hitting the fan at Kerry Campaign headquarters!!!

 

[no1tovote4]

380 Tons in one place goes missing before we get there, but they fail to mention the 400,000 tons of explosives we did get to. Amazingly there are still weapons caches we know about but cannot protect directly as there simply are not enough people to protect all the caches of weapons.

Clearly this is an attempt to make anybody look bad, even with 40,000 more troops as Kerry keeps saying there simply would not be enough people to protect all of the weapons across the country.

 

[Fmr jarhead]

This is getting comical!!!!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1

Now there are reports of there being only 3 tons at the facility!

Still a lot of power, but no where near the 377 tons initially reported, and not the same amount reported in the IAEA's finding at the UN.

Seems like no one can get the story right, at this point....and Kerry is grasping at straws!

 

[no1tovote4]

Wasn't it ABC that originally broke the story based on the word of some guy in the UN? They were planning on holding out until Sunday probably so this kind of stuff would never get out. Now that they were scooped and it got out early they look to be attempting to cover their bias. Unfortunately it is like attempting to stop the flow of blood from a severed limb with a band-aid.

 

[Hobbit]

Wasn't it ABC that originally broke the story based on the word of some guy in the UN? They were planning on holding out until Sunday probably so this kind of stuff would never get out. Now that they were scooped and it got out early they look to be attempting to cover their bias. Unfortunately it is like attempting to stop the flow of blood from a severed limb with a band-aid.

Everybody was holding it to give W. no time to respond, but the NYT couldn't help themselves. They broke the story first.

 

[KarlMarx]

This is getting comical!!!!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1

Now there are reports of there being only 3 tons at the facility!

Still a lot of power, but no where near the 377 tons initially reported, and not the same amount reported in the IAEA's finding at the UN.

Seems like no one can get the story right, at this point....and Kerry is grasping at straws!

Kerry is getting desparate all right. It's like the final days of the Third Reich, as they get desparate, the more fiercely they'll fight and the more insane they'll act.

 

[Bonnie]

This is getting comical!!!!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1

Now there are reports of there being only 3 tons at the facility!

Still a lot of power, but no where near the 377 tons initially reported, and not the same amount reported in the IAEA's finding at the UN.

Seems like no one can get the story right, at this point....and Kerry is grasping at straws!

Some seem to feel Kerry is drowning in quick sand over his blatant Ratheresque repeating of the this bogus story, but Im not so sure it isn't taking some points away from Bush?
That worries me when people are persuaded by untrue unsubstantiated claims. It worries me that the liberal media has so much influence on the public.

 

[Fmr jarhead]

Some seem to feel Kerry is drowning in quick sand over his blatant Ratheresque repeating of the this bogus story, but Im not so sure it isn't taking some points away from Bush?
That worries me when people are persuaded by untrue unsubstantiated claims. It worries me that the liberal media has so much influence on the public.

Do you really think that most people are so much unlike ourselves, that they cannot think for themselves, and need Rather and the blowhards to tell them what to think?

I may be a bit more active in trying to find out what is going on, but I don't think the majority of Americans are a bunch of dumb sheep....likely to follow and believe anything they see and hear on TV.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I doubt it (I'm humble, too)

 

[Bonnie]

Do you really think that most people are so much unlike ourselves, that they cannot think for themselves, and need Rather and the blowhards to tell them what to think?

I may be a bit more active in trying to find out what is going on, but I don't think the majority of Americans are a bunch of dumb sheep....likely to follow and believe anything they see and hear on TV.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I doubt it (I'm humble, too)

Right now I don't know what to believe about the intelligence of the general public, the polls however accurate they are or are not seem to suggest at least half are a bunch of idiots that simply do just listen to soundbites and rederic, or believe what they wish to. I suppose we will know better after the election, hopefully those that do see thru the bullshit will come out in force for Bush.